The EUROPEAN UNION (EU) is a political and economic union of 28
member states that are located primarily in
Europe . It has an area of
4,475,757 km2 (1,728,099 sq mi), and an estimated population of over
510 million. The EU has developed an internal single market through a
standardised system of laws that apply in all member states. EU
policies aim to ensure the free movement of people, goods, services,
and capital within the internal market, enact legislation in justice
and home affairs, and maintain common policies on trade, agriculture
, fisheries , and regional development . Within the
Schengen Area ,
passport controls have been abolished. A monetary union was
established in 1999 and came into full force in 2002, and is composed
of 19 EU member states which use the euro currency .

The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community
(ECSC) and the
European Economic Community (EEC), established,
respectively, by the 1951 Treaty of
Paris and 1957
Treaty of Rome .
The original members of what came to be known as the European
Communities , were the
Inner Six ;
Belgium ,
France ,
Italy ,
Luxembourg , the
Netherlands and West
Germany . Over the following
decades many new members joined them while at the same time
integration of economic, cultural, judicial and so forth would then
deepen the relationships distinct European entity. The Communities and
its successors have grown in size by the accession of new member
states and in power by the addition of policy areas to its remit.
While no member state has left the EU or its antecedent organisations,
the
United Kingdom enacted the result of a membership referendum in
June 2016 and is currently negotiating its withdrawal . The Maastricht
Treaty established the
European Union in 1993 and introduced European
citizenship . The latest major amendment to the constitutional basis
of the EU, the
Treaty of Lisbon , came into force in 2009.

The
European Union accumulated a higher portion of GDP as a form of
foreign aid than any other economic union. Covering 7.3% of the world
population, the EU in 2016 generated a nominal gross domestic product
(GDP) of 16.477 trillion US dollars, constituting approximately 22.2%
of global nominal GDP and 16.9% when measured in terms of purchasing
power parity . Additionally, 27 out of 28 EU countries have a very
high
Human Development Index , according to the United Nations
Development Programme . In 2012, the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize . Through the
Common Foreign and Security Policy , the EU has
developed a role in external relations and defence . The union
maintains permanent diplomatic missions throughout the world and
represents itself at the
United Nations , the World Trade Organization
, the G7 , and the
G20 . Because of its global influence, the European
Union has been described as an emerging superpower .

Play media
Robert Schuman proposing the Coal and Steel
Community on 9 May 1950.

After
World War II ,
European integration was seen as an antidote to
the extreme nationalism which had devastated the continent. The 1948
Hague Congress was a pivotal moment in European federal history, as it
led to the creation of the
European Movement International and of the
College of
Europe , where Europe's future leaders would live and study
together. 1952 saw the creation of the European Coal and Steel
Community , which was declared to be "a first step in the federation
of Europe." The supporters of the Community included Alcide De
Gasperi ,
Jean Monnet ,
Robert Schuman , and
Paul-Henri Spaak . These
men and others are officially credited as the Founding fathers of the
European Union .

TREATY OF ROME (1957–92)

The continental territories of the member states of the European
Union (
European Communities pre-1993), coloured in order of accession.

In 1957, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the
Netherlands and West
Germany signed the
Treaty of Rome , which created the European
Economic Community (EEC) and established a customs union . They also
signed another pact creating the European Atomic Energy Community
(Euratom) for co-operation in developing nuclear energy . Both
treaties came into force in 1958.

During the 1960s, tensions began to show, with
France seeking to
limit supranational power. Nevertheless, in 1965 an agreement was
reached and on 1 July 1967 the
Merger Treaty created a single set of
institutions for the three communities, which were collectively
referred to as the _
European Communities _. Jean Rey presided over
the first merged Commission (
Rey Commission ). In 1989, the Iron
Curtain fell, enabling the union to expand further (
Berlin Wall
pictured).

In 1973, the Communities were enlarged to include
Denmark (including
Greenland , which later left the Communities in 1985, following a
dispute over fishing rights),
Ireland , and the
United Kingdom .
Norway had negotiated to join at the same time, but Norwegian voters
rejected membership in a referendum . In 1979, the first direct
elections to the
European Parliament were held.

Greece joined in 1981,
Portugal and
Spain following in 1986. In
1985, the
Schengen Agreement paved the way for the creation of open
borders without passport controls between most member states and some
non-member states. In 1986, the European flag began to be used by the
EEC and the
Single European Act was signed.

In 1990, after the fall of the Eastern Bloc , the former East Germany
became part of the Communities as part of a reunified
Germany . A
close fiscal integration with the introduction of the euro was not
matched by institutional oversight making things more troubling.
Attempts to solve the problems and to make the EU more efficient and
coherent had limited success. With further enlargement planned to
include the former communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, as
well as
Cyprus and
Malta , the
Copenhagen criteria for candidate
members to join the EU were agreed upon in June 1993. The expansion of
the EU introduced a new level of complexity and discord.

MAASTRICHT TREATY (1992–2007)

The euro was introduced in 2002, replacing 12 national
currencies. Seven countries have since joined.

The
European Union was formally established when the Maastricht
Treaty —whose main architects were
Helmut Kohl and François
Mitterrand —came into force on 1 November 1993. The treaty also
gave the name
European Community to the EEC, even if it was referred
as such before the treaty. In 1995,
Austria ,
Finland , and Sweden
joined the EU.

In 2002, euro banknotes and coins replaced national currencies in 12
of the member states. Since then, the eurozone has increased to
encompass 19 countries. The euro currency became the second largest
reserve currency in the world. In 2004, the EU saw its biggest
enlargement to date when
Cyprus , the
Czech Republic ,
Estonia ,
Hungary ,
Latvia ,
Lithuania ,
Malta ,
Poland ,
Slovakia and Slovenia
joined the Union.

On 1 December 2009, the
Lisbon Treaty entered into force and reformed
many aspects of the EU. In particular, it changed the legal structure
of the European Union, merging the EU three pillars system into a
single legal entity provisioned with a legal personality , created a
permanent
President of the European Council , the first of which was
Herman Van Rompuy , and strengthened the position of the High
Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy .
EU representatives receive the
Nobel Peace Prize in 2012

In 2012, the EU received the
Nobel Peace Prize for having
"contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation,
democracy, and human rights in Europe." In 2013,
Croatia became the
28th EU member.

From the beginning of the 2010s, the cohesion of the European Union
has been tested by several issues, including a debt crisis in some of
the
Eurozone countries , increasing migration from the Middle East and
the United Kingdom\'s withdrawal from the EU . A referendum in the UK
on its membership of the
European Union was held on 23 June 2016, with
51.9% of participants voting to leave. This is referred to in common
parlance throughout
Europe as _Brexit_. The UK formally notified the
European Council of its decision to leave on 29 March 2017 initiating
the formal withdrawal procedure for leaving the EU, slating the UK to
leave the EU on 29 March 2019.

The EU's member states cover an area of 4,423,147 square kilometres
(1,707,787 sq mi). The EU's highest peak is
Mont Blanc in the Graian
Alps , 4,810.45 metres (15,782 ft) above sea level . The lowest
points in the EU are
Lammefjorden ,
Denmark and
Zuidplaspolder ,
Netherlands , at 7 m (23 ft) below sea level. The landscape, climate,
and economy of the EU are influenced by its coastline, which is 65,993
kilometres (41,006 mi) long.

Including the overseas territories of
France which are located
outside the continent of Europe, but which are members of the union,
the EU experiences most types of climate from Arctic (North-East
Europe) to tropical (
French Guiana ), rendering meteorological
averages for the EU as a whole meaningless. The majority of the
population lives in areas with a temperate maritime climate
(North-Western
Europe and Central Europe), a Mediterranean climate
(Southern Europe), or a warm summer continental or hemiboreal climate
(Northern
Balkans and Central Europe).

The EU's population is highly urbanised, with some 75% of inhabitants
living in urban areas as of 2006. Cities are largely spread out across
the EU, although with a large grouping in and around the
Benelux .

In 1957, when the EEC was founded, it had no environmental policy.
Over the past 50 years, an increasingly dense network of legislation
has been created, extending to all areas of environmental protection,
including air pollution, water quality, waste management, nature
conservation, and the control of chemicals, industrial hazards and
biotechnology. According to the Institute for European Environmental
Policy , environmental law comprises over 500 Directives, Regulations
and Decisions, making environmental policy a core area of European
politics.

European policy-makers originally increased the EU's capacity to act
on environmental issues by defining it as a trade problem. Trade
barriers and competitive distortions in the Common Market could emerge
due to the different environmental standards in each member state. In
subsequent years, the environment became a formal policy area, with
its own policy actors, principles and procedures. The legal basis for
EU environmental policy was established with the introduction of the
Single European Act in 1987. A black stork , a protected species
under Regulation (EC) No. 338/97

Initially, EU environmental policy focused on Europe. More recently,
the EU has demonstrated leadership in global environmental governance,
e.g. the role of the EU in securing the ratification and coming into
force of the
Kyoto Protocol despite opposition from the United States
. This international dimension is reflected in the EU's Sixth
Environmental Action Programme, which recognises that its objectives
can only be achieved if key international agreements are actively
supported and properly implemented both at EU level and worldwide. The
Lisbon Treaty further strengthened the leadership ambitions. EU law
has played a significant role in improving habitat and species
protection in Europe, as well as contributing to improvements in air
and water quality and waste management.

Mitigating climate change is one of the top priorities of EU
environmental policy. In 2007, member states agreed that, in future,
20% of the energy used across the EU must be renewable , and carbon
dioxide emissions have to be lower in 2020 by at least 20% compared to
1990 levels. The EU has adopted an emissions trading system to
incorporate carbon emissions into the economy. The European Green
Capital is an annual award given to cities that focuses on the
environment, energy efficiency and quality of life in urban areas to
create smart city .

As of 1 January 2016, the population of the
European Union is about
510.1 million people (6.9% of the world population). Considered as a
country, the
European Union would have the third largest population
after
China and
India . In 2015, 5.1 million children were born in the
EU-28, corresponding to a birth rate of 10 per 1,000, which is 8
births below the world average. For comparison, the EU-28 birth rate
had stood at 10.6 in 2000, 12.8 in 1985 and 16.3 in 1970. Its
population growth rate is positive at 0.25%.

In 2010, 47.3 million people who lived in the EU were born outside
their resident country. This corresponds to 9.4% of the total EU
population. Of these, 31.4 million (6.3%) were born outside the EU and
16.0 million (3.2%) were born in another EU member state. The largest
absolute numbers of people born outside the EU were in
Germany (6.4
million),
France (5.1 million), the
United Kingdom (4.7 million),
Spain (4.1 million),
Italy (3.2 million), and the
Netherlands (1.4
million).

URBANISATION

See also: List of cities in the
European Union by population within
city limits

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